DISQUS

There's a saying "a poor workman blames his tools." Well, "a poor manager blames his people."

One of the insidious things about adding new considerations or items to think about is that each one increases the complexity exponentially.

Good analysis. Let me add two observations.

I think part of Starbuck's problem was that while they talked about the European café experience and being a third place, in the pursuit of growth they consistently did things to undermine the concept.

For years they tried to move into the fast food space that McDonald's rules by adding food items. Now McDonald's has moved into their space with their coffee offerings. Starbuck's doesn't just have the problem of waiting for an economic upturn. They also have the problem that McDonald's has good a pretty good product for less money. And you can throw in an Egg McMuffin.

Great post, John. Stories are the way that human beings have stored, remembered, and made sense of complex information since we've been human beings. You don't sit around the campfire and share data points. You tell stories, even if the campfire is digital.

I use stories in the form of "reader personas" to get at who I'm writing for in an article or on a web site. Data-rich descriptions can't come close.

I use "web use vignettes" to describe what we want to happen when a visitor comes to a client site. Detailed feature sets and maps can't come close.

Close to what? To the richness and nuance that stories provide.

But data points can help you supplement and sharpen your stories. The combination is more potent than either alone.

That's a powerful and thoughtful post. It will take me a while to digest all that's in it.

Let me throw another taxonomy into the mix. When I work with clients on problem solving, I've found it helpful to define three classes of process. There are recipes. We know what the issue is and we have a straightforward way to achieve the results we want. There are guidelines. We understand the issue fairly well and we have some rules of thumb that we can apply, adjusting as we go. And we have creative processes. That's where we need to spend time on definition of the issue as well as the measurements we'll use to see if we succeed or not.

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/03/25/...

Wally Bock

Another example that the downturn is the universe reminding you to do what you should have been doing all along. As you say, staying close to the customer is hard, but doable. I think it's hard because it's a bit scary.

One of my copywriting mentors called it "verisimilitude" which he defined as "not only truth, but the appearance of truth." His theory, which has worked for me for years is that if you had significant negative features in the product, the best way to deal with them was to present them up front and then deal with them by demonstrating how they don't matter in the face of other, more significant, benefits.

In today's networked world, all you need is one customer to figure out a problem with your product for everyone to find out about it. Then two things happen. First, they concentrate on the problem instead of the benefits. And, second, they wonder why you didn't tell them and what else you might be hiding.

Hmmm. A friend of mine once wrote a country song titled: "Can I be Frank with you tonight" but I guess that's another issue.

My dad used to tell his preaching students to "Stand up. Speak up. Then shut up."

Thanks for that pointer, John. The article will make "Leadership Reading to Start Your Week Tomorrow" where I'll say "thanks" again. Always enjoy the blog.

Luck or chance or the "great Brownian Movement of events" are all powerful. But so is hubris. That's what sent Napoleon roaring into Russia. So are the many choices he made in terms of how he recruited, structured and used his army.

That said, you're absolutely right about the good read and the many lessons in this book. And it's not one of those where a summary or abridged version will do.

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/01/28/...

Wally Bock

Great post, Frank. Seems to me that if managers are engaged you won't need to worry much about engaging the people who work for them.

Good post, John. Thanks for pointing us to that interview. We do seem to have gotten many things backwards. Maybe we need a bit of marketing by wandering around.

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/01/21/...

Wally Bock

Congratulations! Here's a bit of praise for you. This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/01/21/...

Wally Bock

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/01/07/...

Wally Bock

Fine post, Frank. If you're talking about eliminating the performance appraisal systems we've got in most companies, then I'm with you. BUT I'm not for eliminating performance appraisal, at least not the direct, many-times-a-day evaluation that happens between supervisor and team member. Without that you get neither correction nor improvement.

The HR-run system sits atop that daily work. The HR-run systems we have in place are not just ineffective, they're often toxic.

So it turns out that we're mucking it up on both ends of the process. On the front lines, we're not selecting people with a shot at success to be supervisors. We barely train the ones we select and only a fraction of that training concentrates on the simple communication skills necessary to coach, counsel, encourage and correct. We don't hole supervisors responsible for their daily supervision work and we give them no support. Then, we stick some superstructure of an annual one-way system atop the whole thing and expect it to work.

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2008/10/22/...

Wally Bock

Great post, Frank. I offer a similar quote from the best CO I had in the Marines: "There is no leadership unless there is leadership by example."

A fine, well-reasoned post Alison, but I disagree. I think that you have to ask for every position if there is indeed specific experience (industry, specialty, relationship, whatever) that a person needs to bring to the party. I've also come to think that the "industry-specific" experience is more likely to be important, the higher up in the organization the position to be filled is located. The more experience people have, the more likely they are to see the world through the lens of that experience.

Wonderful post, Frank. Reminds me of the story of the legendary Rene McPherson who, when he took over the Dana corporation, threw out almost two feet of policy manual and replaced them with a single sheet of paper.

Great point, Frank. Taking a candidate to lunch can tell you a lot about a person's manner, ability to handle social situations in a business context. And how they deal with wait staff at the restaurant and receptionists and other "unimportant" people around the office tell you a lot about character.

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2008/05/28/...

Wally Bock

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2008/05/28/...

Wally Bock